Ichiro Satoh

Experiences from Context-aware Services in Real World

National Institute of Informatics, Japan

Ichiro Satoh

Email: ichiro@nii.ac.jp

Ichiro Satoh

Self-Introduction

Ichiro Satoh Professor, National Institute of Informatics Visiting researcher of Rank Xerox (at Grenoble) Chairs or program committee members of major

conferences on ubiquitous computing, e.g., PerCom and Ubicomp.

From TV news on my experiments in shopping moles and department stores.

Ichiro Satoh

National Institute of Informatics (NII)

NII is 1.5km-near from Tokyo Station

NII

The Imperial Palace

Tokyo Station

1.5km

NII has PhD course / internship programs If you are interested in the program, please contact with me

NII

Akihabara (electric/geeks/manga/ otaku town)

(Manga) Publishers area

Ichiro Satoh

Outline

n  Experiment on context-aware services n  Experience from context-aware services at the real world n  Conclusion

This presentation focuses on experiences rather than system issues.

Ichiro Satoh

Middleware for Context-aware Services n  Our middleware can maintain the locations of computing devices

and software for defining services in addition to those of physical entities and places in a unified manner.

n  Application-specific services are defined and executed within virtual counterparts within the location model.

n  The middleware can naturally provide a location-aware service discovery mechanism and service policy specification language.

room-bound counterpart

room-bound counterpart

floor-bound counterpart

user-bound counterpart

proxy counterpart

room-bound counterpart

light-bound counterpart

room-bound counterpart

desk-bound counterpart

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computer

networked light service provider software

service provider software

The model also maintains the location and capabilities of computers and the relocation of software.

Specification of the user’s

requiring services

control and software deployment

Ichiro Satoh

Experiments n  We had done several experiments in public museums:

n  The National Science Museum, and etc. n  Museums have many visitors whose knowledge about

exhibitions are different. n  Annotation about exhibitions should be provided for

visitors dependently on their knowledge and experience, including the exhibitions that they previously viewed

the National Science Museum (Tokyo, Japan)

Ichiro Satoh

Experiment n  In the National Science Museum,

each spot was in front of the fossils of dinosaurs in an exhibition room.

n  When a visitor enters in a spot, the system selected and played audio-based annotation about dinosaurs according to the combination of the current spot, past spots, and his/her selecting course.

n  The experiment has done for two weeks.

n  It had more than 200 participants per-day and was evaluated with a group of 262 participants.

Ichiro Satoh

Experiment (cont’d) n  Each visitor wore a hat equipped with RFID tags. n  Each spot had an RFID reader to detect the presence of a

visitor within it.

Speaker

Flat antenna for RFID Reader

RFID Tag(s)

I am a member of ISO standardization committee for RFID and real-time locating technology

Ichiro Satoh

How to evaluate context-aware services n  There is no unified metrics to evaluate context-aware

services. n  It is difficult to evaluate the effectiveness of context-

aware services individually.

n  (Only) one solution is to compare between our approach and existing approaches. n  You should provide context-aware services, which can

be fairly compared from other approaches.

No evaluation is no academic research.

Ichiro Satoh

Evaluation To evaluate the effectiveness of our context-aware visitor-guide

system, we experimented four audio/text-annotation systems. A)  Mobile Phones/PDAs (iPod Touch)

To listen audio-annotation, users input numbers attached to exhibits (120 testees)

B)  Location-aware PDAs (iPod Touch) When RFID readers detect RFID-tags attached to PDAs, the system automatically enables PDAs to play audio-annotation dependent on their current spots. (56 testees)

C)  Paper-based posters Text-based annotation located near the exhibitions. (50 testees)

D)  Our experiments (262 testees) Annotation content were common among the four experiments to offer a

unified metrics in comparison of these approaches. Note: the above numbers are the number of testees, which are only 8-12 years

children for the reason of a single evaluation metrics.

Ichiro Satoh

Evaluation (cont’d)

After visitors experienced each courses, we assigned tests to participants to evaluate the achievement of their learning.

The percentage of their correct answers: A)  Mobile Phones/PDAs: 53% B)  Location-aware PDAs: 52% C)  Paper posters: 66% D)  Our experiments: 68% Problems: 1.  A’s problem : half-visitors inputted incorrect numbers and

listened incorrect annotations but were aware of their mistakes.

2.  B’s problem: most visitors paid attention to their PDAs instead of exhibitions.

Ichiro Satoh

From experiment, we learned..

n  Context-aware services should play leading or extra roles.

n  All technically interested approaches are not appropriate in the real world. n  Researchers may misunderstand because people tend to

evaluate new approaches to be interested, but such approaches may not be effective.

n  Many traditional approaches have been used because of they are effective.

Ichiro Satoh

From experiment, we learned.. How to inform services n  It is difficult for users to find/know who/

where/when context-aware services are available.

n  On the other hand, several users were surprised at the sudden activation of when context-aware services.

n  We need to instruct users who, where, when, what, and how context-serviced provided.

To avoid this problem, we put marks at spots to explicitly specify where context-aware services are available.

Ichiro Satoh

From experiment, we learned.. How to support to legacy spaces n  It is more difficult to make legacy spaces than to build new

smart spaces, because of their constraints. n  There may be no space to deploy devices, e.g., sensors,

in legacy spaces, including homes and offices. n  Legacy spaces may lack power-line and networks. n  Context-aware services must make existing spaces smart

without losing any utility of the original spaces.

Museums required all devices to be invisible from visitors.

Ichiro Satoh

From experiment, we learned.. How to manage n  Management systems are important.

n  Context-aware services need numerous heterogeneous sensors and devices.

n  Public spaces, including museums, have no spaces for management systems.

n  They lack any professional administrators.

Backyard of a typical experiment for smart rooms. It is often larger than its target rooms.

Ichiro Satoh

From experiment, we learned.. How to manage (cont’d) n  There may be no space for system

management in real spaces.

n  Our experiments supported GUI-based management systems in PDAs. n  It enabled curators to monitor and

control context-aware services by using their portable devices instead of any stationary terminals.

Ichiro Satoh

From experiment, we learned.. Availability and Reliability n  Context-aware services are required to be provided anytime.

n  e.g., the experiment was required to continue to work for 6 days because the devices were deployed close to definitely precious specimens.

n  There is no silver bullet to develop reliable systems. n  Context-aware systems are a mission-critical system. n  In fact, student-level programming skills may not be enough.

n  I designed and implemented all middleware systems in out experiments.

In fact, our middleware and services could support more than 200 visitors per-day and continue to work without any reboot and configuration for every 6 days.

Ichiro Satoh

From experiment, we learned.. Availability and Reliability n  Sensing systems should be selected according to their

measurement errors. n  Lateration systems can locate users' positions, but they may

sometimes return incorrect positions far from their real positions. n  They may provide incorrect users with incorrect services.

n  RFID-tag-based proximity systems can detect the existences of users within specified areas but they occasionally lose the positions of tags. n  They may not provide users with services even when they

are in spaces where they should receive the services.

n  The latter’s problem is better than the latter’s problem in the real world. n  Least suffering strategy rather than best-effort one.

Ichiro Satoh

From experiment, we learned.. Availability and Reliability n  Smart surroundings are stupid and scatterbrain.

n  Sensing systems are not perfect. n  Champion data in experiments are meaningless.

n  The technology needs to support least suffering strategy instead of best-effort one. n  High reliability and availability

are needed. n  How to notify failures of smart

surroundings to users.

n  I also designed a new antenna for the experiment.

Ichiro Satoh

From experiment, we learned.. How to notice system errors n  Sensing and computing systems are not perfect.

n  System errors must be inevitable.

n  Two solutions: n  To recover systems errors as much as possible, n  To enable users to notice system errors.

This is a good example of notifications of failures in reliable systems

Ichiro Satoh

From experiment, we learned.. Deployment and installation n  We cannot have long time to deploy equipment at the real world.

n  Museum required us to deploy and install our system for one day (close day).

n  Devices can be easily replaced by new ones. n  Context-aware systems should be robust from rainy, wind, dust,

and mischievous attacks. n  They should be able to be packed and assembled for logistics.

Ichiro Satoh

From experiment, we learned.. Deployment and installation n  The current version enables end-users to easily install and

configure context-aware services by using (semi)self-tuning / diagnosis / healing mechanisms. n  We lend our systems to non-professional peoples to

evaluate their installation. n  In fact, artists could setup and provide their media-

art works without our help at fine art museums.

Ichiro Satoh

From experiment, we learned.. How to right human errors n  Context-aware services are required to guide visitors to their

right behaviors. n  Visitors often do unexpected behaviors. n  But, most existing user-assistant systems assume that

people always follow their assistances exactly.

n  To right human errors, we need to warn users in various approaches. n  When users miss visual signs,

we may need to right them in another approach, e.g., audio-based one.

n  In the experiment, 95% programs are exceptional handling for human, sensing, or system errors.

Ichiro Satoh

From experiment, we learned..

n  Context-aware services in public spaces take care of handicapped / elder / child persons. n  Context-aware services must avoid to become obstacles

for them. n  Cabling and devices may prevent their movement.

n  All visitors are not gentle. n  Mischievous children, complainers, etc.

n  Context-aware services may incur resentments. n  Some voluntary museum guides felt that our context-aware

services deprived their activities. n  Audio-guide systems in many museums have been

operated by third-parties.

Ichiro Satoh

Proactiveness vs. Spookiness

n  Context-aware services are required to be proactive: n  Computing systems can anticipate our needs

and act on our behalf. n  They need to understand the user’s context and how it

changes over time.

n  People want proactive services but may feel spooky or officious. n  I think, there may be an implicit gap between proactive and

spooky/officious services.

Ichiro Satoh

Conclusion

n  Context-aware systems depend on the real world. n  They should be evaluated in the real world.

n  Real requirements for context-aware computing can be studied only from real experiences. n  in real spaces, with real users, for real applications,

n  There is a large gap between prototype-/laboratory-level and real systems. n  Most issues in the latter do not appear in the former. n  Many research issues in the gap.

We cannot know real problems without real experiences.

Ichiro Satoh

Question

Experiment (is hard…)